


in your arms I am a wild creature

by singmyheart



Category: Do No Harm (TV)
Genre: M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Alternating, Post-Canon, Rough Sex, complicated adult emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-10 20:13:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10446471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singmyheart/pseuds/singmyheart
Summary: Jason mulled it over for a minute and said, "If I get busted for, like, international drug smuggling for trying to take my meds over a border, I'm throwing you under the bus the first chance I get.”“Understood,” Ruben said, solemn.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [trick-please (EveJobs)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EveJobs/gifts).



> it may become evident quickly that I've seen this show from beginning to end one (1) time and didn't bother to check if I'm contradicting myself or canon at any point. look. don't @ me. just roll with it. live a little. 
> 
> there's some brief talk of drugs (medical and recreational) and therapy, nothing explicit.

 

 

Jason's not in bed when Ruben wakes up. This isn't unusual, when they're home. But they're not, so he gets up.

He can't have gone anywhere, which isn't exactly what Ruben’s concerned about. He finds Jason on the whitewashed balcony, back shuddering with the breaths he's trying in vain to keep even. Ruben makes a little noise just so Jason knows he's there, hangs back, doesn't touch him.

“Go back to sleep.”

“You need anything?”

Jason shakes his head, cuffs at his red-rimmed eyes. Sighs when Ruben steps out to join him. “Go back to bed.”

“In a minute.” They're overlooking the Caldera, which looks the way it always does in movies. Bright-painted doors on white houses stacked haphazardly on top of each other, a city piled precariously onto a mountainside. These last few days have been a blur, both of them the ugly American tourists apologetically butchering Greek phrases to ask for directions, order dinner. Roast lamb and ouzo and dancing and no familiar faces.

“I was dreaming,” Jason starts, resigned. So tired. “About -”

“You don't have to tell me…”

“I know I don't. It was - Cole, and Olivia, they just - didn't recognize me. Like I was a total stranger. Just some guy.”

“Sorry,” Ruben murmurs; it feels inadequate. He's always thought he wanted kids, in a vague, Someday kind of way that somehow exists separate from the idea of actually being a father. He can't imagine what this part is like for Jason: to have something like that and then have it disappear - he can't wrap his mind around it.

Jason allows himself a sob, a single sharp thing before he reins it back in. Wipes his wet face on his shirtsleeve, grimaces. “Ugh. Hot, right?”

“I've never not been into you, dude,” Ruben says, truthfully. Jason makes that face he makes when he doesn't know what to say, can't supply a white lie or stupid joke quickly enough. It's not like he can say the same, and that's fine - Ruben’s not looking for a declaration, right now. It's just the truth. “Come back to bed?” A question this time and he knuckles at Jason's shoulder.

“Yeah. Alright.” They leave the balcony door open to tempt the breeze, which is warm and tugs at the bedsheets. Ruben crawls back into bed and listens to Jason knocking around in the tiny bathroom for a minute. He can see stars, here, scattered pinpricks of white on black, like he never can in Philly.

When Jason comes back his face is damp, as well as his hands when he slips them under Ruben’s shirt. Ruben squeaks, wiggles a little, a token protest.

“The water I taste,” Jason mumbles into his shoulder, recitative, “is warm and salt, like the sea. Comes from a country as far away as health.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Ruben can feel him smiling - laughing at himself, maybe. “Go back to sleep.”

 

**

 

Jason has nightmares: awful, oversaturated ones, too bright. Tactile, so he can feel broken glass crunching underfoot, someone's throat in his hands. Waking on the surgical table conscious but paralyzed. Disconnected images, hospital beds, the green felt of pool tables, stained-glass church windows. The worst are the ones where he can't tell if he's himself or Ian.

Ruben has them too, but his panic is less internal than Jason's is. Jason tries to swallow it, usually - doesn't exactly work, but it's getting easier to fake it, and he figures that means he's inching closer to it actually getting easier.

He has no idea how this whole thing started, with Ruben. A couple of times he's tried to backdate it, sort things out, but a lot of these last few months has been a blur. Days and sometimes weeks sliding by, out of his grasp. He'd woken from the surgery to be told it'd been a success, blinked, and Ruben was in his bed. He's started buying groceries for two and rinsing Ruben’s beard trimmings out of the sink without thinking much of it.

Further, he doesn't really see the draw here for Ruben, their whole thing - how Ruben can be so into him and so scared of him at the same time. He doesn't ask; doesn't have the words to ask. Reminds him of that old saying, that it's none of your business what other people think of you. He doesn't know if Ruben’s ever intending to go back to IMH, if he has any kind of plans or aspirations, anything in the works. There are a lot of blank spaces in Jason's life these days, a lot of question marks.

He does know that the sex is only okay, most of the time, and that's when it doesn't end in panic attacks for one or both of them. He does know that it's easier than talking, and that it's nice in the simplest kind of way to wake up next to somebody he can reach for before they even bother trying to greet the day. It keeps the loneliness at bay for a while, keeps him from getting swallowed up by the yawning grey monotony of the days ahead, the prospect of clawing toward some sense of normalcy. Holding his breath and watching the clock turn eight twenty-six every night. A future certain only in its sameness.

They roll around for a while in a warm, lazy kind of tangle (which they can't really do in Ruben’s single bed; it's fine when he's in the rare mood to be overwhelmed but Jason's is nicer, with room to spread out). Ruben comes twice before Jason admits that it's just not going to happen for him, reaches down to grab his wrist, gently. “Not this time.”

Ruben makes a noise that he vaguely interprets as sympathetic and lets go of his cock. “Sorry.”

“S’fine,” Jason murmurs, kisses him. And it is, really - it's a side effect of one of his fucking meds, that a solid fifty percent of the time he can get right up to the edge and just not come, plateau right when he thinks it's inevitable. It's frustrating - but, he thinks bitterly, probably better than the alternative.

 

 

He had promised Olivia he wouldn't look for her and Cole, and he couldn't anyway, wouldn't know where to begin. From the tangle of everything else rises the resentment: it's safe, now. Ian’s gone; his violent, mercurial, dangerous other half is gone. Or - not gone, but once again under lock and key, and permanently. Jason tortures himself meditating on what he's missing, what he _could_ have now but remains so far beyond his reach: an actual relationship with his son, the privilege of watching him grow up, all those cliches he's heard men spout about fatherhood. A friendship, at least, with Olivia.

He takes a chance and sends her an email: nothing detailed, just to say hello and wish her well. Let her know, in a few words, that he'd like to talk, if that's on the table. It bounces back a few minutes later, _user not found._ He's not sure what he'd been expecting, and feels stupid; of course she changed her email address.

Ruben returns early that evening, from wherever he goes when he's not here. He's clean-shaven these days, hair grown out some, jeans and a hoodie. He looks skinny, young. Drops onto the couch, the opposite end from Jason, not touching. Not in the mood for it, then; he usually initiates.

Jason's kind of in a haze, four beers deep and half-watching TV. Hasn't moved in an hour or two. He's sulking, is the truth.

“You alright?” Ruben asks, after a time.

“Fine,” Jason says, automatically.

“Right.” Ruben doesn't push it. They end up ordering pizza, not talking much. He's got his nose in a book, Jason half-dozing in front of _I Love Lucy._ “You finished?” Ruben gets up to clear their plates, stretches until his spine cracks, painful sound.

“Can you actually wash them this time?” Jason asks, shaking himself awake.

“Uh, yeah.” Ruben gives him a Look. “That was a little pointed.”

“If you could just - not leave them overnight, maybe -”

“When have I ever made you clean up after me, Jason? They'll get done.” That's already edging into defensive, gets Jason's back up even through the tipsy tired haze.

“I clean up after you all the time,” he points out, “which -”

“I've _never_ asked you to do that -”

“Which is what happens when you just leave stuff and say you'll get around to it and then you don't -”

“Okay, okay. Christ. I said I'd do them.”

“Don't look at me like that. It's not exactly unreasonable, especially given that you're not paying rent -”

“That's what this is about?” Flash of real hurt, for just a second. “Fine. I'll pay you rent -”

“I mean, in part, but - just - I'm not being an asshole, here, just wash your dishes, rinse your fucking hair out of the sink -”

“You're not being an asshole,” Ruben repeats, flat, skeptical. “Where is this even coming from?” A beat. “You take your meds today?”

“Yes.” There's real, simmering anger now, underneath the drifting agitation. “Yes, I took my meds. God, you're a dick sometimes -”

“All of ‘em?”

“Yes.” (No. And he's not supposed to drink with them, either, strictly speaking. Doesn't matter.) Ruben’s skeptical look doesn't budge and that flares the anger up hot and sudden: “Oh, fuck _off,_ Ruben. Really.” There’s genuine venom there, skirting the edge of fury so abruptly that it scares him. Ruben looks scared of him. And it's more than a snap: Jason's a lot of things, but he's never been an angry person. Since the surgery, though, it comes and goes, these waves of black, unpredictable anger. And under the fury the guilt, at Ruben wide-eyed and anxious. Looks a little ridiculous just standing there holding the remains of their dinner.

He turns and heads for the kitchen, drops the plates in the sink with a clatter. Comes back, takes a breath like he's bracing himself. “Do you even notice when you're lying, anymore?”

Jason's a little dumbfounded, isn't sure how to respond to that (not with the truth). Tries to buy a second to think. “What?”

“Like, is it just a reflex, now?”

“I can't believe you'd even ask me that -”

And as quickly as it had come, whatever calm Ruben seems to be trying to harvest slips, back down into snide. “You lie all the fucking time - you couldn't get a cab or you went to your session or whatever. I'm not an idiot, I know when you're doing it. All I'm asking is whether _you_ can even tell - because I get it, okay, I do, you've been doing it for so long -”

“That is so unbelievably condescending,” Jason interrupts, nettled and wrong-footed. Hates how this keeps happening, how he can't ever head off the fight before it starts and he's always trying to stumble his way out without knowing how they've gotten where they are. He's prepared to go on in this vein but Ruben’s dug his phone out of his pocket and is staring at it, waves a hand.

“Shut up,” he says sharply and continues louder when Jason sputters, disbelieving. “Shut up, it's - it's eight twenty-four, just. Stop.”

Jason stops. He knows, he _knows,_ but. He breathes deep to will off the curl of rage in his chest; all of the advice he's gotten in therapy seems to boil down to “breathe” and it's kind of absurd but it doesn't _not_ work. So. Counts the seconds, sixty, fifty-nine, fifty-eight, and at twenty-three Ruben lets out a breath Jason hadn't realized he was holding. Another few seconds and the switch still doesn't flip, still, still, no fog descending. It doesn't happen anymore and it won't and he knows this, rationally: never again will he wake up in an alley or an unfamiliar car and have to reverse-engineer the trail of destruction. Foreign object the size of a fingernail in his head much too small to suppress Hurricane Ian. He doesn't trust it, not entirely, but he'd done it, hadn't he. And it's working, isn't it. More or less.

“I'm going out,” Ruben says, after another long moment. He's texting, doesn't look up as he says it.

“With who?” Jason doesn't actually mean for that to sound so rude, the surprise. Honestly has no idea who Ruben might want to spend time with if not him.

“What do you care?”

“I don't,” Jason says pathetically to Ruben’s back as he ducks into their - Jason's - bedroom, listens to him moving around. He comes back out a little dressed up, clean and pressed button-down, cloud of cologne, fastening his watch.

“Don't wait up,” Ruben tells him, does the last-minute check in the hall mirror, wallet, keys, phone. _Wasn't planning on it,_ Jason thinks and doesn't get to say before the door slams.

 

**

 

Olivia’s kept a shoebox of photos under her bed for years now. It goes into the bedroom closet in the new house, collecting dust on a shelf where Cole can't stumble on it, wouldn't think to go looking.

Cole has so many questions she can't answer, the child's capacity for heartbreak and confusion and razor-sharp curiosity that he hasn't learned yet how best to express and that she's running out of ways to soothe and satisfy. He's angry, too, wants to know why he can't see his dad anymore, why they had to move away; he won't accept her half-assed deflections and she doesn't exactly blame him. They'd fought earlier and in a moment of frustration she'd found herself pulling out her own mother's trump card, _because I said so._ Hasn't had so much as a glass of wine in years and she doesn't often miss it, but nights like this bring up that gnawing ache, that phantom pain of being without.

She has to go up on her toes and stretch to pull the cardboard box down, shoulders straining. Brushing the dust off the lid makes her sneeze, and she settles down on the rug. Months now since the move and this house, this bedroom, still feels temporary, a vacation from her real life back in Philly.

The stack of photos is always an unpleasant shock to look at, initially, and she forgets every time. She's always been skinny but she's emaciated here, pale; her eyes look huge, hair thin. Ian, too. (Not for the first time, she silently thanks whatever God might be listening that she even made it through a pregnancy, that Cole turned out fine. Better than.) The beach house is in shambles, broken glass and spoons scattered across the table behind them. They look happy, though - and the voice that reminds her that it was just chemical is quieter this time than it once was. The two of them tangled around each other on the couch, kissing messy and laughing, half out of frame. She's wearing Ian’s shirt and his eyes are bright, sparking, like she hasn't seen in a long time. It might have been mostly the drugs but he was fun, she remembers, wild, unpredictable in a way that terrified her but excited her too. Lit up that part of her that had craved adventure, sweeping romance, hated more than anything the threat of boredom, of being tied down. And he'd loved her.

She leaves the polaroids fanned out across the floorboards and tiptoes to Cole’s bedroom door. This room, like hers, is smaller than his old one and not yet lived-in, not quite. She wonders if he wakes sometimes disoriented, forgetting where he is, like she does.

She'd thought, long before he was born and the idea of having kids was still a vague hypothetical, that she'd be honest with a kid no matter what. Knew with certainty that having children meant having difficult conversations with them. She'd never given much credence to the whole “you won't understand until you have kids” thing - motherhood didn't afford some kind of secret wisdom unknown to other women. She'd make sure any kids she had knew she was human and fallible, not an untouchable authority figure.

She hasn't thought about that in a while. Doesn't really know how she feels now, real life pushed up uncomfortably against the hypothetical. Wonders if she'll tell Cole some version of events, someday, when he's old enough - if she'll ever think he's old enough.

The floor creaks suddenly under her weight and he stirs, but doesn't wake. Even at his age, his face open and unguarded in sleep, he looks heartbreakingly like Ian. Like Jason.

 

**

 

Jason's therapist's name is Claudia. He'd insisted, for obvious reasons, that if he was going to see a therapist it wouldn't be someone he knew, technically a former colleague. She'd happened to get hired right around the time he was sorting all of this out, so at least she hadn't had time to hear from the rumor mill. God knows what kinds of things are being said about him these days, whispered behind hands in tones to match the concerned, patronizing expressions all his former coworkers wear around him. Ask him how he's doing like someone's died (well - that's not so far from the truth, is it).

Claudia is blonde, and delicate, and pale. He has the idea that her bones are fragile, like a bird’s. She wears four or five earrings in one ear and black nail polish to go with her long skirts and gauzy scarves, and she looks so much like Olivia he'd done a double take when he'd first met her.

Once every couple of weeks they sit for an hour in her office with its heavy furniture and hotel art while he tells her half-truths and she asks careful, probing questions. No, he hasn't been in touch with his son or his ex-wife. Yes, his mood swings have been manageable, his headaches less frequent, so his meds - both the original ones and the two others he's taking to offset the side effects of the first - seem to be working. Yes, he's going kind of stir-crazy being out of work, getting a little bored.

“Maybe you could do with a little boring,” Claudia observes. She's not wrong, he supposes.

Jason always feels guilty after their sessions, that she's only trying to help and he can't _not_ withhold some. Skirting some things and downplaying others, lying by omission. It's not her fault that nobody has any fucking idea what to do with him, that his whole situation is such an unknown quantity.

 

**

 

To say that Josh had been surprised to hear from Ruben would be an understatement. Ruben had invited him out for a drink and Josh had accepted mostly because he figured Ruben could use the company, if he was asking at all: work friends would be a fair description of their relationship up til this point; friends, minus the qualifier, is pushing it.

The gossip around IMH has grown increasingly weird for a while now (that Ruben’s living with Jason, that they ran away together, something about a surgical scar that seems actually anatomically impossible) but Josh doesn't give much truck to any of it; there's no real reason anyone should know anything for sure. And it's none of his business, anyway. Still, it's clear something's changed; Josh doesn't remember Ruben being quite like this, before. Not exactly jumpy but a little tense. Not quite forthcoming, either, which Josh can admit makes sense even if he's kind of resentful that Ruben’s making him work so hard, do most of the conversational heavy lifting. 

“You want to get out of here?” Ruben asks after a while, kind of abruptly and with a bravado that seems largely faked.

Josh flounders for a second - does Ruben think this is a date? Has either of them implied that this is a date? Ruben isn't seeing anyone (at least, when Josh had asked earlier, casting around for small talk, he'd said, “I wouldn't say that, no”) and the very idea that Josh himself might be dating is laughable, so - God, answer him, he's waiting for you to say something -

“Sure,” he says finally. It seems uncomplicated, almost pragmatic, even: opportunities like this are (very) thin on the ground for him, and he can't imagine Ruben’s much different, really. Why shouldn't they do this, keep each other warm tonight. Don't overthink it.

They end up going back to Josh’s because it's closer; Ruben doesn't fuck around, kisses him the second they get in the door. The sex is fine. Not great, but fine. Josh can't quite pin down why the whole evening feels a little off - in hindsight, he'll realize it's just that Ruben is trying to prove a point, and not to him, but to some absent third. That Ruben’s having sex _at_ him more than anything. But he pushes all that down for now, because, well, a body’s a body and touch is touch and it really has been a while.

Ruben stays long enough for coffee in the morning, but that's all.

 

**

 

“Ruben?”

No answer. He waits a minute, tries again. “Ruben.” Nothing. So he heaves a sigh, gets out of bed. Winces as his bare feet hit the floor, it's _cold._ The bed’s still warm. He always checks the guest bedroom - Ruben’s bedroom - first, when this happens. But the door’s open, the bed neatly made, a half-empty glass of water sitting on the bedside table since God knows when.

On to the bathroom, then, down the hall. Light shining out from underneath the door. He tries to make some noise so as not to startle Ruben further, with the carpet muffling his footsteps. “Ruben? Hey.”

“I'm fine,” Ruben says, in the exact same tone he uses when his mom calls.

“Will you open up, please? C’mon.” Jason tries the knob even though he knows he shouldn't, really. It's locked, though, like he'd assumed.

“Fuck off, Jason, I said I'm fine.” Ruben doesn't sound angry, just tired. Takes in a deep breath, a little ragged at the edge.

“Something set you off?” It's worth asking; sometimes it's Jason's fault, just carelessness, but equally often it's nothing at all, the product of lying awake and letting his head cycle through it all, the world's worst highlight reel.

“Nightmare,” Ruben says. “Same as usual,” he adds before Jason can ask.

“Right.” Jason sits, folds down onto the floor; the door groans a little, taking weight on both sides. “It's…” A glance at the clock. “Four-seventeen AM. We're at home, in Philadelphia -” And he winces internally (home, we) but presses on. “It's me, it's Jason.”

“Don't,” Ruben objects quietly. “You don't have to do this.”

He kind of does, though. “You remember the time Lena came to work with two different shoes on?”

Ruben chuckles, a little watery. “Yeah. Took her like an hour to notice.”

Jason goes on like this, for a time; it only takes a few minutes to get Ruben breathing normally again, to run through the collection of stupid anecdotes and random facts they've collected for this exact scenario like loose change. It's one of the only things that works consistently; Jason's been seeing a therapist for months and she hasn't given him anything half as helpful.

He lets the quiet hang between them for a moment, and raps a knuckle against the door. “Come back to bed.” Another few seconds, like Ruben’s thinking about it, and then Jason hears him get up, take the brace off the door, click of the lock. And the door’s open, leaving him blinking in the sudden rush of light before Ruben turns it off. Even in the dark Jason can tell his eyes are red-rimmed, his face pink and blotchy.

“Wish you'd wake me when this happens,” Jason tells him once they're back in bed. Both wide awake now, not touching, islands.

“I don't need to, clearly,” Ruben points out, a curl of amusement in his voice. He tugs at Jason's arm to fit himself under it, head on his chest. “You're like - not Lassie. What's the other one, with the dog?”

“Benji?”

“Yeah! Yes. You're Benji.”

“Scruffy, transient, of indeterminate pedigree. That's flattering, thank you.”

“You're welcome,” Ruben says, straight-faced.

“God. How old are those movies? That dog is so dead.”

“That is so _morbid,_ ” Ruben chides but he's laughing.

 

**

 

Somewhat against her better judgment, Lena goes out with Jason again. They'd run into each other at the hospital and it had been almost normal, for a few minutes, catching up.

She's not quite sure what she's expecting at the start of the evening - but after half an hour or so she relaxes. He seems better, not erratic, not checking his watch every five minutes. He doesn't have a lot to tell her, having been not doing much over the last few months. And she's not privy to all of the details - to very few of them, actually - but _hey, how are you recovering from your unprecedented experimental neurological surgery and its subsequent effects on your health, career and relationships_ is probably a little heavy for this evening, so she doesn't mind having to carry things some.

It's nice to see him, really. It's enough to remind her why she'd liked him in the first place, that despite - well, everything, he's sweet and he makes her laugh. She's missed him, and he doesn't make her do the whole dance when the cheque comes, just quietly hands the waiter his card. That's reason enough, she thinks, to kiss him on the sidewalk, when he starts making noises about calling it a night. “Take me home,” is what she says, just enough inflection to make it a question. Leans into him a little, fingertips light on his chest. He's nervous, skittish almost, but he says yeah, says okay, and starts trying to flag down a cab.

They're a little tipsy, warm and laughing. “Shh,” he tells her, “I have a roommate,” but he kisses her once they get in the door. His nerves melt out, slowly, until he's confident in touching her, hands on her waist and his kiss devouring (and she'd forgotten, but - yeah, this too, is no small part of the reason she'd liked him in the first place).

The apparent presence of said roommate doesn't stop him from pulling her down onto the deep, plush couch in the living room, into his lap. They don't even make it to bed.

 

Lena wakes clear-headed but parched. After taking a minute to revel a little in how good last night had been (very), she disentangles herself from the warmth of his body and slips into his shirt, goes looking for the bathroom. The door of what must be his roommate's bedroom is closed - good, they don't need to see her walking around half-naked - but the other is open and she can't resist poking her head in. Looks kind of sterile; she hadn't taken Jason for a neat freak but that's not so strange, former surgeon. Twin bed, which is. Whatever.

After the bathroom the kitchen, to investigate coffee possibilities. He's got one of those ridiculous huge espresso machines, an intimidating contraption you'd need an engineering degree to figure out.

A voice, not Jason's: “Lena?”

She turns to see - “Oh. Ruben. Hi.”

He looks guilty for having startled her. “Do you want - here,” he mumbles and she steps awkwardly out of his way so he can get the coffee started. She's very aware that she's just in Jason's shirt, a pile of her clothes on the floor in the next room. Tries not to fidget with the hem, pull it down to cover more of her thighs, like she'll call attention to it. “It's kind of fickle,” Ruben explains, almost apologetically.

At a loss, she sits across from him at the kitchen table and picks at a piece of toast. The silence a wall between them. Why had Jason just said _roommate,_ she wonders, not mentioned Ruben.

Jason comes wandering in after an interminable few minutes, in his boxers. “Morning,” he says sleepily, pours himself a cup of coffee. The milk carton proves to be empty; he waves it at Ruben, looking resigned. “Really?”

“We're out of milk,” Ruben says, teenager-sullen. Clearly not the first time they've had this conversation.

“That's bachelorhood for you,” Lena puts in, aiming for light.

Jason smiles, a little, but Ruben says, “yeah, confirmed,” with a bitterness that such a minor inconvenience surely doesn't warrant. Jason levels a look at him that he pretends not to see and Lena can't decipher, but seems otherwise unbothered by all this weird tension.

She doesn't piece it together until later, on the way home. Why he'd dodged the question of whether he'd been seeing anyone, why they hadn't gotten as far as either bedroom last night, Ruben’s attitude. Jason had kissed her at the door, said he'd call her, and his smile hadn't quite reached his eyes.

Well. Okay, then.

 

**

 

Ruben’s never seen Lena look nervous. Not that he knows her particularly well, or anything, but she's always struck him as put-together, composed, hard to ruffle. So, yeah, it's a little surreal to see her in his kitchen, in Jason's shirt, looking nervous. He takes pity on her long enough to get coffee going, and they sit in awkward silence for a bit while Ruben tries and fails not to think about what he'd heard last night.

(They'd been trying to keep quiet, to their credit, but he'd heard: low voices, laughter, the rustle of clothing shed. He'd listened with a sick kind of fascination, both straining to hear and wishing he couldn't. Hadn't been able to tell if Jason had come, wonders whether one or both of them got self-conscious about it. Or if it was just the kind of sweet, easy fuck he's never had with Jason, that he'd so stupidly used to let himself fantasize about in the years before it happened, that languorous rose-coloured thing that doesn't match up at all with the reality.)

Jason comes shuffling in, pours himself coffee and mumbles a hello. Half-asleep and half-naked and annoyingly, infuriatingly gorgeous. Ruben realizes a second before he pulls it out that the milk carton is pretty much empty, he'd meant to get more, but - the mild guilt he feels is quickly replaced by irritation at the look Jason gives him.

“That's bachelorhood for you,” Lena offers. Doesn't quite land.

“Yeah, confirmed,” Ruben blurts out, acid. Jason shoots him a _shut the fuck up_ kind of look, which Ruben makes a show of ignoring.

He doesn't bother to get dressed by the time Lena leaves, and the worst part is he's not doing it to get any kind of rise out of Ruben. Ugh. Fuck him, Ruben thinks, splashing the dishes around the sink so he doesn't have to overhear their goodbyes.

“What's the matter with you?” Jason asks when he returns to the kitchen, point-blank.

“Nothing.” Ruben doesn't look at him.

“‘Confirmed’? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“It was a joke, relax.”

“Wasn't funny.”

“Duly noted.”

“Whatever, Ruben,” Jason says, and now he's the one sounding adolescent. “I'm not dragging it out of you.”

“What do you think we're doing here?” He hates that it sounds plaintive, needling, instead of pissed off like he feels.

“What do I think we're doing,” Jason repeats, like an asshole. God, why won't he put a _fucking_ shirt on.

Fine, fuck it. Crashing into the argument they're both denying wanting to have. “Yeah. You and me - this. Us.”

“I don't know - I guess - I haven't thought about it. Is this - are we having the state of the relationship talk? What do you want me to say? Tell me.”

“You are _such_ a prick sometimes -”

“Seriously. This is about Lena? Because really, Ruben, it's not like - we're just -”

“Oh, go ahead then,” and there it is, the anger, scathing. Good. Feels good in an ugly kind of way. Off Jason's mystified look he hurtles on. “Say we're _just friends,_ go on -”

“I just meant - it's not like we're married, are we. Add to which you don't exactly have a leg to stand on, assuming jealousy is all it is, given Josh -”

“That was different,” Ruben interrupts. How does he even know about that.

“How,” Jason says, flat.

“Because it wasn't - I didn't make you look at him in my clothes over your fucking waffles, okay, at the very least I could've done with a warning -”

“Okay, fine.” Jason sounds amused now but his body language is all defensive, arms crossed. “I'll let you know next time I bring someone home. Sock on the doorknob, maybe. You done?”

Ruben doesn't dignify, turns back to the dishes, intent on a particularly stubborn splotch of grease in one of the pans, but - hooks onto something from a minute ago, chases it even though he shouldn't. “No, wait - hang on,” he says and Jason comes back, looking wary. “What’d you mean, if jealousy is all it is? What else would it be?” It's a stupid question, a horribly vulnerable position to be in.

“Well, I never exactly know, with you. Figured I might as well clarify.”

“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?” Ruben demands, stung.

“Just that I can't read your mind, even though you seem to expect me to, but -”

“Ugh, you know what, forget I brought it up. That's such bullshit, Jason -”

“Is it?” Jason counters. “How many times do I have to chase you when you're pissed about something, instead of you just telling me? Like, if I have to hear one more passive-aggressive -”

“Don't fucking talk to me about being honest. Not you.”

That rings, in a sudden, awful silence. Jason looks so openly wounded that Ruben wants to apologize; he shouldn't have said that even if it's justified. He bites it back, though, and Jason says, quietly, “Guess I deserve that.”

Ruben crosses the space between them and kisses him. Doesn't even know why, might be an apology, or the start of one, but it's messy, hard enough to knock Jason off-balance, knock him back a step. The noise he lets out against Ruben’s mouth is somehow both harsh and confused but he gets on board, kisses back, equal fervor.

It's bruising, wet hands, wet mouth, teeth. Blunt nails scratching just to hurt, not even to feel good. Nothing but static roaring in his head as Jason palms him rough and he can't untangle what he wants, to fuck Jason or have Jason fuck him - can't find the patience to slow down, not right now. Not even the patience to make it somewhere other than the kitchen, apparently.

Jason decides for both of them, hand on the back of his neck to push his chest against the countertop, which is still wet and a mess. Nudges Ruben’s thighs together and slips his cock between them, spit not enough to ease the way and he doesn't care. It _hurts,_ pushed up against the granite like this and held down and he doesn't care. It'll bruise later and all he can think to do is spur Jason on - “yeah, you gonna come? Come on, do it, take what you want, Jason -”

With little ceremony Jason shoves his fingers into Ruben’s mouth, hooks in his cheek to more or less gag him, and goes harder. Ruben can hardly move, like this, not even to push back on him. Even with Jason gone a little soft over the winter, letting himself slip on his workouts, they're still laughably unmatched - and that familiar terror spikes up black and jagged, just the beginnings of it, the suggestion. But he forces it down, _not now, not now,_ whines a little around Jason's fingers and Jason curses quietly and comes, stills, breathing hard against Ruben’s shoulder.

Ruben’s panting harsh too as Jason lets him go, lets him up. A shift, suddenly, this messy frantic desperation fading as quickly as it had come. He turns and they look at each other a moment; Jason's flushed, tiny spot of blood on his lip from one of them biting it.

Jason goes to his knees. He's not great at this but he hardly ever does it so Ruben’s not about to complain and he's achingly close, anyway - not long at all before he's over the edge, shuddering. Jason sits back on his heels, wipes his mouth.

They don't talk about it.

 

Later, Ruben gets around to finishing the dishes, cataloguing his various aches; his hip is bruised, back scratched up and tender, neck aching.

He tenses momentarily when Jason comes back in, but he just presses himself to Ruben’s back, lips just briefly on his neck. Ruben lets some of his tension leach out in spite of himself, leans into him a little despite the twinge, the fabric of his shirt catching in the raw spots. This is Jason-speak for _sorry,_ which means it's only kind of in the vicinity of what a normal person might eventually be persuaded to view as an apology, but it's the best he's going to get. It's enough.

 

**

 

They're somewhere in South America when Jason realizes he doesn't know what time it is.

They've spent the last month or so traveling, mostly avoiding tourist traps and bunking down in hostels. Drinking and trying to cobble together conversations with strangers and mostly resorting to gestures. Something like three time zones in four weeks. They're both in better shape than they've been in ages from all the walking, bronzed from the sun, unshaven for days at a time. Jason's wildly hungover and hasn't slept in two days and isn't _entirely_ sure of the name of the town they're in, and it's good.

(He'd come home from grocery shopping one afternoon to find Ruben packing up, out of the blue, and after a very confusing few minutes they'd managed to get on the same page. “Come with me,” he'd said. “I've been thinking about this for a while, there's nothing keeping us here, is there? Let's just go.”

“Where?” Jason had asked, bewildered and trying to catch up.

“Fucking - I don't know. Canada.”

“Canada.”

“Yeah, Montreal’s cool, right? How's your French?”

“Nonexistent. Ruben, what the fuck -”

“Look,” Ruben had said, softened. Pulled him down into the mess of the bed, strewn with clothes and books and his open suitcase. “I just wanna get out of here, just fuck off somewhere for a while. Doesn't matter where, Europe, Asia - I don't have anything tying me to Philly, except for my mom and - well. Present company, I guess,” he'd admitted, awkwardly. Laughed at himself and went on and something twisted in Jason's chest. “I'm not gonna tell you what to do, but I'd like to, you know, not do this alone. Or with my mom. So.”

Jason had mulled it over for a minute and said, “If I get busted for, like, international drug smuggling for trying to take my meds over a border, I'm throwing you under the bus the first chance I get.”

“Understood,” Ruben had said, solemn, and let Jason kiss him.)

Jason's been dozing, fully clothed. Shakes himself from half-sleep now and rolls out of bed, stretches. Full moon in the sky outside the window like it's been painted on. The bathroom door is open and the shower’s running; he can hear Ruben singing idly to himself.

Ruben looks unsurprised to see him, just murmurs a hello and steps back so Jason can join him under the spray even though there's not really space enough for two. It's good, though, scalding, and they're pressed close, the slide of their warm wet bodies together comforting and uncomplicated. “I'm kind of into this,” Ruben admits, skritches his fingertips through Jason's new beard. “ _Survivorman_ thing. It's hot.”

“It's itchy,” Jason complains, token, and Ruben rolls his eyes. They kind of give up on even trying to get clean, after a minute of elbowing each other trying to move around, settle for just touching instead. Ruben’s arms slung around his neck, dick just starting to stir against his thigh. “Hey,” Jason says. “You know what time it is?”

“No,” Ruben says - and then it clicks. “No, I guess I don't.” Blinking water from his lashes and pink from the heat, the smile spreads across his face slow. Jason's grinning, too, and tilts down to kiss him; Ruben meets him with a ready hunger. The steady thrum of hot water makes his skin feel raw and new.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> if you're wondering, "confirmed bachelor" is just an old-timey euphemism for gay.
> 
> title comes from "Broom People" by the Mountain Goats. 
> 
> this was written for the March round of [Fight Back Fic Auction](http://www.fightbackfic.tumblr.com). tell your friends.
> 
> also I'm on tumblr at [youbuiltcathedrals](http://www.youbuiltcathedrals.tumblr.com), come talk to me about old-timey gay slang or whatever.


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